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Flamingo, a DTC company focused on women’s grooming needs, was the first brand to emerge out of Harry’s Labs, in October of 2018.
Since Harry’s launched in 2013, it’s seen a lot of success with female customers, at one point boasting over 1 million female subscribers. It finally decided to take advantage of the built-in fanbase of women and create a brand specifically for them.
Allie Melnick, who’s worked at Harry’s since its launch and now serves as gm for Flamingo, saw saw the opportunity to connect with female customers by serving them with both a suite of products specifically designed for how they use them and honest, approachable education surrounding hair removal.
“We’re really talking to women who want to think about caring for their bodies in thoughtful ways and have body hair as a reality, which is a pretty wide audience,” said Melnick.
On this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, beauty editor Priya Rao sits down with Allie Melnick to discuss how Flamingo is humanizing hair removal, educating consumers and evolving. Below are excerpts from the episode, edited for clarity.
The stigma of body hair removal
“I can’t speak to society at large, but I think [body hair removal] is one of these taboo topics that’s been relegated to the corners, and for some reason, women have been made to feel they are supposed to be these hairless, pore-less goddesses. I certainly felt like that when I was younger. I remember begging my mother to get me laser hair removal for birthday in my teenage years, which didn’t work for me, so I felt like I’d tried every single solution and nothing worked. I just never really felt comfortable talking about [hair] or having it, and I think that’s just something that we’ve had in culture and society. With Flamingo, we want to bring out these conversations in a real way.”
Providing education with a human touch
“I’ve spent a lot of time talking to men about what their [grooming] needs are, too — there are gaps for both [sexes]. People have questions. I think one thing that can feel intimidating and overwhelming to everyone is that there is so much information out there, it doesn’t feel digestible or approachable. A big thing that we do with Flamingo is humanize it. One thing we experienced when we looked at the category was that there wasn’t that much education on body hair removal: tips and tricks, how tos. And when there was, it didn’t always feel like it was written by a human; it felt a little sterile. So, how do we make it feel like we’re a really knowledgeable friend that’s talking to you and guiding you through the process? That’s a lot of our mantra. We can really be a resource — not just for great products, but also for great education.”
Understanding your brand starts with understanding your customer
“We need to know the customer at the core. There’s no secret sauce other than that the heart of it is: Who is this customer? How do we treat them with respect? How do we be thoughtful about their needs? And how do we build a suite of solutions that’s really built around their pain points and needs? That continuous listening aspect of it is so critical.”
